CHAPTER THREE
Logan walked into Pastor Steven’s dining room and nodded at the other guys in the house. He’d never been particularly religious and some days, like today, he felt like a fraud even being here.
“Hi, Logan. Long time no see.” Dylan Bayliss stood up and shook his hand.
Logan had met Dylan at his first counseling session in Bozeman. Both of them had been in Afghanistan. Both of them had come home with memories they’d sooner forget.
Dylan had been in combat. Logan had been reporting on the conflict. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was the last thing either of them had expected to get. But it had hit them both, made them different people from the men who’d left America.
They walked into the kitchen and Dylan grabbed a can of Cola for Logan. “Where were you last month?”
“It was my mom’s birthday. I flew out to Seattle and stayed for a few days. How’s your job?” When Dylan had been discharged from the Army, he didn’t know what he was going to do. An Army buddy had started his own security company and called Dylan when he heard he was looking for work.
“Busy. I’m heading to Los Angeles next week to bring an eight-year-old here for a vacation with his dad.”
“Rich family.”
Dylan shrugged. “It’s more common than you’d think. Some parents have high paying jobs and need someone more than a nanny to travel with their kids. What about you? Found any good stories lately?”
Logan popped the tab on his can. “Mayor Jarvis sacked her Executive Assistant.”
“Riveting stuff.”
“It is when there’s an internal investigation going on for fraud. The story will be in tomorrow’s paper.”
Pastor Steven came into the kitchen with an empty plate. “If you guys want lunch I’d suggest you move fast. Jeremy and Todd are hungry. Good to see you, Logan.”
Logan shook Pastor Steven’s hand. “You need help with anything?”
“Never thought you’d ask. Grab one of the dish towels out of the cupboard beside the fridge. There’s a plate of mini quiches in the oven that need to go on the table.”
Logan opened the oven and stared at the pile of quiches. “Your wife’s been busy.”
“My daughter’s responsible for lunch today. She’s here for a few days and decided to try her culinary school recipes on us.”
Dylan took one of the quiches off the top of the plate and ate it. “I’d say her college fees are worth every cent. These taste great.”
Pastor Steven followed them into the living room. “Remember that when they go on the table. Jeremy and Todd have already tried some and they’re waiting for more.”
Logan laughed and eyeballed Dylan. “Sounds like I need a bodyguard to keep this food safe.”
“You want my advice? Take the plate back into the kitchen and we’ll have lunch without them.”
“The old avoidance and run tactic. Works every time.” Logan left the plate on the table and growled at the hand passing in front of his chest. “Get those fingers away from the quiches, Jeremy.”
Jeremy laughed and snatched a quiche out from under Logan’s nose. “You got to be quicker than that, old man.”
“You’re five years younger than me,” Logan scoffed. “And living on dangerous ground if you come back for more food before Dylan and I get our lunch.”
“Let them eat,” Todd said generously from one of the big armchairs in the room. “They’re grumpy without food.”
Dylan flicked him the finger, then remembered where he was. “Sorry, Pastor.”
“Think nothing of it. I’ve been known to want to express myself more creatively at times, too. Once you’ve got something to eat, we’ll start.”
Logan and Dylan grabbed some lunch then sat in one of Pastor Steven’s sofas.
The meeting started with a prayer. Over the last year, Logan had learned that prayers came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Just like the message in them. Some of the shortest ones could mean the most, especially if they were sent straight from the heart.
Pastor Steven nodded at Logan and Dylan when he’d finished. “Better eat your lunch before it gets cold. William sent his apologies. He’s in Tucson with his wife and kids. Who wants to tell everyone what they’ve been doing?”
Jeremy started the ball rolling, making them all laugh with the latest disaster story from his dating calendar. “Laugh all you want,” he said. “But you didn’t have to fend off her hands for an hour and then figure out how you were going to leave.”
As he kept telling them about his week from hell, Logan thought this must be one of the strangest support networks around. They ate food and talked about everything that didn’t involve what was really on their minds.
But sometimes, when they least expected it, something happened to make them glad they were here. A triggered memory, a time when each of them hadn’t been able to see past the blackness surrounding them. They’d built their trust in each other and themselves and figured out the rest along the way.
Logan waited for his turn, listened to the words that weren’t being said. Jeremy missed his ex-wife. She’d left him not long after he’d returned from his tour of duty, and for three years he hadn’t dated anyone. Now he was, and his courage was tested each time he went on a date.
Then it was Todd’s turn. Out of all of them, he suffered the most from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For a while, he’d been totally lost. Pastor Steven had found him a volunteer job at the local animal shelter. That had led to a part-time job at the veterinary clinic. The animals he worked with gave him some kind of comfort. But for all of the stories he told, the one that mattered the most was how well he was doing. Todd had found somewhere that helped heal the scars he’d hidden for years.
Dylan didn’t have a lot to say. He told them about what he’d been doing, where he’d be going next week. “That’s it. Nothing much to report.”
“You sleeping?” Pastor Steven asked.
“Getting there,” was the evasive answer they got.
Logan planned on talking to Dylan after the meeting. They were friends. If Dylan wasn’t doing too well, he’d do anything he could to make sure he was okay.
Pastor Steven let Dylan off the hook and moved his focus onto Logan. “What have you been doing?”
“Looking for a missing bride-to-be,” he said dryly.
That made Dylan sit taller in his seat. “What are you talking about?”
“I did a story last week about a couple who had everything stolen out of their home. They’re getting married in two weeks and the bridesmaids’ dresses left with the burglars.”
“What happened to the bride?” Jeremy asked.
“Nothing, I hope. We can’t find her.”
“We?” Even Todd was getting into the swing of Logan’s not so exciting life.
“Tess started it. She owns Angel Wings Café on Main Street. Then her friends joined in. They want to donate four dresses to the bride for her bridesmaids.”
Pastor Steven steepled his fingers in front of his chin. He was either contemplating the implications of Logan and four women hunting for a bride, or trying not to laugh. “Why can’t you find the bride?”
“She’s gone ‘back home’, whatever that means.”
Dylan reached for his Cola. “Who told you she’d gone home?”
Logan didn’t want to go into too much detail about Connie’s helpful neighbor. The fact that she knew his boss wasn’t sitting too comfortably on his shoulders. “A neighbor told us this morning.”
“You went out with four women and you didn’t invite me?” This startling insight came from Jeremy. “Are any of them single?”
“You hate going on dates,” Logan said.
“It’s not a date when you’re looking for something. If you tell me all four are hot single women, I may rethink our friendship.”
“I don’t want to give you sleepless nights or ruin our friendship.”
“I knew it,” Jeremy muttered. “Next time take me with you. I can find
someone faster than most people can blink.
“Are you still looking for the bride?” Dylan asked.
“Tess and her friends are. They’re working on finding her at the moment.”
Jeremy grinned. “Do you think they’d like to add a masculine touch to their search?”
“Even if your touch stays on the bride and not on them, I’d say they’ve got it covered.”
Pastor Steven pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “I got this in the mail the other day.”
Logan glanced at the envelope. “If it’s a hot tip on where the bride has gone, you can deliver it to Tess.”
“It’s from the orphanage in Afghanistan.”
And just like that, Logan’s walls came tumbling down.
Pastor Steven gave him the envelope. “I haven’t opened it.”
No one said a word as Logan held it in his hands. They knew he’d asked Pastor Steven to use his contacts to locate the children he’d left behind in Afghanistan. The chance of finding any of them alive had been so low that Logan never thought he’d hear anything.
He stared at the brown envelope, turned it over and read the return address. “Nau Deh?”
“It’s a small town about a hundred and fifty miles from where the bombing took place. UNICEF set up an orphanage there two years ago.”
Logan nodded, then stuffed the envelope in his pocket.
“If you want company when you open it, just give me a call,” Pastor Steven said.
In a rare display of affection, Dylan wrapped his arm around Logan’s shoulders. “You can count me in, too. Any time, day or night.”
Logan took a deep breath. He felt the weight of what the envelope represented right down to his bones.
“You going to be all right, buddy?” Todd asked.
“I guess this is what you call learning to live with the pain,” he mumbled.
Pastor Steven walked across to the table and made a cup of coffee. He passed it to Logan and frowned. “We’re here to help.”
Logan nodded. He couldn’t taste the coffee as he drank it, couldn’t have repeated a word that was being said around him.
He waited, staying until everyone was ready to leave. It wasn’t that he was scared to face his worst fears. He was terrified.
As he walked down Pastor Steven’s driveway, Dylan stopped him. “Call me. I’m only in Los Angeles for a couple of days.”
Logan looked at the trucks lining the street, the houses with pretty front yards and the kids riding their bikes. He couldn’t have gotten any further from Afghanistan if he’d tried. And he had. He’d tried so hard that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be back there again. The scorching heat, the sand that worked its way into everything. The constant threat of an enemy you didn’t see until it was too late.
He looked at Dylan and frowned. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Same old demons coming out to play. I’ll tell you about it when I get back from Los Angeles.”
Logan waited for Dylan to drive away before getting in his truck. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket. Pastor Steven could have handed him the answer to his nightmares, or a psychological bomb waiting to explode. He left the envelope on the passenger seat and drove toward home.
He didn’t know what was in the envelope and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out.